


i'm trying to find my peace (i was made to believe there's something wrong with me)

by thispapermoon



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Dark fic, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Healing, Hicsqueak, Hurt/Comfort, Resilience, Retrospective, tw: abuse, tw: sexual assult, what happened in the 30 years between
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 07:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14786024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thispapermoon/pseuds/thispapermoon
Summary: It’s been over ten years since the day Hecate turned her away and she believes her heart to be mended. Not fully smooth and whole, but enough that it should be able to hold together should she look up and have their eyes meet across a crowded room.It doesn’t.****A retrospective of the 30 years that pass between when Hecate abandons Pippa at the broomstick display and when they reconcile at the Spelling Bee.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the times Hecate and Pippa must have bumped into each other through the years. But what came of it was unexpectedly dark in a way that...I feel weird about. So warnings: the first parts of this fic are different from my others. Heads up for tw in tags. 
> 
> Back to posting all chapters at once. Oh gosh, it feels so good.
> 
> Title from Cold War by Janelle Monáe (so, so flippin’ good)

After all the spectators have packed up and gone home, after the awards have been handed out, winners praised, races won; after she has darted through the crowds, heart in her throat, fear in her belly, up to the castle, up to Hecate’s room - _empty_ , then the library - _empty_ , and then to the broomroom - all _empty_ , Pippa returns to the stadium and sits alone.

Streamers and used lemonade cups litter the rows of seats and she sits anyway, too numb to feel much at all. Except a deep certainty that she does not want to feel, must hold off feeling for as long as she is able. Something tells her that when the pain comes it will be unlike any she’s ever known.

Because Hecate is gone. Gone like the gentle, pink-brushed clouds that hug the pale skyline soon will be. Gone like a candle winking out after a wish. Gone, and left her to sit alone, tiny in the vast stadium, alone in the vast world.

Graduation is tomorrow and she wonders how she’ll pick up the pieces. Paste on a smile. Be the golden girl that everyone wants her to be.

 _Except Hecate_.

Hecate who never asked for her to be more than she is. Who always allowed her to be herself.

In the distance she can hear the celebratory picnic up on the lawn of the castle. Friends, and families, and students, and teachers all milling about, sipping iced pumpkin juice and nibbling sweets. She imagines taking Hecate by the hand and dragging her through the tents, filling up their plates until they find a quiet spot, up on the turrets perhaps, away from everyone, looking down at the merriment below. Just the two of them. Together.

She shivers. And shivers again though it’s a warm day. Nearly June. But Hecate is gone.

No note. No word as to where. As to why. She’s left nothing behind, nothing at all. Just a cold ache in Pippa’s lungs. Between her ribs. And in her heart.

_______

It takes her nearly four months to track her down. She searches all summer and finds nothing. When she starts Spellwend’s in the fall Hecate doesn’t show up to school.

But Pippa’s heard rumors.

Rumor’s that a powerful witch by the name of Broomhead is said to have taken on an inordinately talented witch over at Weirdsister’s. That Broomhead, who ever she is - although Pippa does not like the way people speak of her in hushed, awed, nearly fearful, tones - rarely takes on a witch for private tutelage. That her new charge comes from an old, oddly powerful lineage. And that Broomhead has high hopes for the girl.

Several weeks into term, Pippa finally finds herself with a free weekend and makes the journey to the neighboring college, palms sweaty on her broom handle, heart hammering in her chest as she alights on the dewy grass.

It’s early on a Saturday and hardly anyone is about, making it easy for her to sneak into the student center and thumb through the dorm listings. Sure enough, there’s the name: _Hecate Hardbroom, Cornwitch Hall, Wraithwright Wing, Dorm 5C._ Her breath catches for moment and she lets her finger press against the name. After years of nearly every moment spent side by side it’s the closest she’s been to her after months of absence and silence.

Finding a map of the campus, she quickly locates Cornwitch Hall, knees trembling as she makes her way up the steps to the fifth level, and follows the signs toward the Wraithwright Wing. The corridors are empty and when she finds 5C she wipes her hands on her jumper, suddenly unsure.

 _But Hecate could be in trouble, couldn’t she?_ Pippa’s repeated it to herself for months and months while imagining likely, and then progressively less likely, scenarios of Hecate’s misfortune. And every fantasy involves her sweeping in and saving Hecate from some dark fate, knocking down doors in the process if if she has to.

Knocking. _Right. Yes._ She straightens and taps on the door, heart in her throat as she waits. When moments pass and no sound comes from the room, she raps again, harder this time.

Nothing.

Suddenly she finds herself pouding on the door, all hurt, and hope, and fear pouring out of her, her voice ringing through the sleepy halls.

“Hecate Hardbroom, I know you’re in there - you come out now, you hear? You come out this instant. I don’t know why you’re avoiding me - but I don’t care. I’m not leaving until you come out and talk to me - Hecate - you hear me - !”

A door flies open, but not her door, the one nextdoor, and a dour looking girl with her hair in curlers glares out at her.

“Do you mind? Witches are trying to sleep around here.”

Pippa blushes. “Sorry.”

The girl frowns at her, but there’s curiosity behind her eyes. “You know her?” She inclines her head at Hecate’s still closed door.

“She’s my best friend.”

The girl gives a blunt laugh of disbelief. “Her? She has friends?”

It’s a common enough jab that Pippa barely blinks at it, squaring her shoulders instead. “Yes.”

“Well, no good beating down her door. Not home much, that one. Not even to sleep most nights. She’s one of Broomhead’s, after all.”

“Miss Broomhead? It’s true then? Does she really give Hecate that much work?”

The girls laughs, but Pippa doesn’t like how it sounds. “Sure. Work. Whatever you want to call it.”

“What do you mean?” She watches as the girl crosses her arms and regards her frankly.

“Mean that rumors are true enough about Broomhead. Wouldn’t trade my best spell book to study under her, no matter how great a witch it made me. Broomhead’s a dark one. But your friend seems like the type to go along with that sort of thing. Late nights included.”

Something like dread flares in Pippa’s stomach. “Hecate would never - she would never - “

But the girl simply raises her eyebrows and moves back into her doorway.  “Yeah, whatever. See for yourself, but don’t come back here when you don’t like what you find. Spindletwist Hall, Classroom H. Don’t say you heard it from me.”

With one last significant look the girl is gone, her door clicking shut behind her. Turning slowly Pippa leans against the wall, breathing hard. Hecate _is_ in trouble then. Of what kind she is unsure, but trouble all the same.

She pushes away from the wall and marches back down the hall, down the stairs, across the lawn. Finds another campus map and then strides purposely towards Spindletwist Hall, not slowing her pace as the dark, sinister looking towers come into view and cast their shadows down across her path.

The inside is just as dark. Silent, and dusty, and grim, as if the old building is hardly used for classes these days. She passes empty rooms of cobweb covered desks, tarps draped across furniture and slanting paintings. The feeling that Hecate is in trouble intensifies and she quickens her step, shivering as the sound of her footfalls echo down the twisting corridors.

At last she comes to Classroom H. There’s a flicker of light under the door, the low murmur of voices within. Strident tones matched by softer ones.

_Hecate._

Raising a trembling hand, she knocks. And waits. And then -

The door swings open and Hecate stands before her, a strange, green fire just visible in the ornate grate in the room beyond.

Pippa’s so relieved to see her alive, and looking well enough with her hair drawn back neatly in it’s familiar plait, that before either of them can say a thing she’s rushing forwards to throw her arms around her friend.

But Hecate steps sharply back and Pippa comes up short.

“Hecate, what - ?”

“What are you doing here, Pippa?” Hecate’s voice is low and cold, like Pippa’s never heard it, not even directed at the mean and simpering girls who plagued Hecate in the schoolyard.

“I - I -” Suddenly every speech she had planned, every scenario leaves her and she can merely gape up at her, noticing suddenly how Hecate’s eyes are different, withdrawn and detached, her cheekbones more prominent and her posture more rigid. Not that Hecate has ever been the warm and overly-huggable type, but Pippa knows her. Knows her face, and her habits, and her mannerisms better than she knows her own. A creeping cold steals through her at this new strangeness.

“I came to find you. To - to - make sure you are alright.” Her voice trembles a little and it’s not even half of what she wants to say.

No, she wants to take Hecate in her arms and check her over. To stroke her hair back, and feel her forehead, and hold her tight, and be certain that she’s well. That she’s safe.

And then ask her why.

_Why did you disappear like that, Hiccup? Why have you come here instead of Spellwend’s? Why did you leave me? Hiccup, why?_

A shadow passes in front of the fire, casting eerie shadows into the hallway, the light growing dimmer until Pippa can hardly make Hecate out against the towering darkness of the tall, commanding woman who suddenly stands behind her.

“Hecate is quite well, silly girl.” The woman’s voice is oily, smooth yet sticky in a way that makes Pippa stomach twitch uncomfortably. She frowns. _Silly girl?_

“Now, it’s best you run along back to that little college of yours, isn’t it. You’ve interrupted Hecate’s studies. I’ll let it pass this once, but next time I shan’t be as lenient. Hecate no longer has time for your schoolyard games.”  The voice is still sickly sweet and hot anger bubbles up within Pippa. She stares at Hecate who hasn’t moved.

“Hecate? What is this -? Are you sure -”

“I assure you, girl, Hecate is well cared for.” The woman places a long, thin hand around Hecate’s shoulder. In the flickering light it looks like a claw. She’s holding on too tightly, the gesture possessive in a way that makes Pippa nearly ill.

Pippa reaches out without thinking and take’s Hecate’s hand.

“You don’t have to stay here, Hiccup.”

Hecate looks at her. Looks down at their joined hands. Look back up, eyes glassy. “Mistress Broomhead is right, Pippa. I don’t have time for silly games anymore.” She withdraws her hand and Pippa gasps. “Go away. Don’t come back.”

Before she has a chance to protest, the door swings shut, the sound echoing down the hallway with a boom. She finds her legs moving of their own accord, some spell muscling her into its grip, removing her control over her body and shuffling her through the halls until she reemerges, sick and trembling in the sun, gagging at the feel of the magic, oily and sinister as Broomhead itself.

She collapses on her knees on the grass, taking deep gulps of air. Closing her eyes against dizzy nausea, she can still see Broomhead’s slow smile as the door had swung shut; hungry and unnatural, her hand like a vice on Hecate’s shoulder.

______

There’s nothing to be done but to sit outside Hecate’s door and wait for her to come home.

She plunks down right against the wooden door and doesn’t move. Stares daggers at the poster board across the hall advertising the Witch Ball League, and the Cauldron Club, and _broomstick display tournaments._ She closes her eyes and still feels ill.

The girl next door comes and goes, eyeing Pippa with equal parts displeasure and exasperation. Still, she doesn’t budge. The day wears on, students passing her in groups, shooting her curious glances, which she meets with an even gaze.

Eventually the nausea subsides and her stomach grumbles, but she stays put, kicking out her legs as the sun sinks low in the sky and rolling her ankles in an attempt to dispel the pinpricks that shoot up her legs from remaining so long in one position.

Soon girls emerge for the evening in fine dresses, ready for a night out. Gabbing and laughing they pat their hair and apply final coats of lipstick, comparing shoes and nail polish and plans. Hours later they reappear, wobbly in their tall heels, some with stumbling wizards on their arms, giggling and shushing each other as they sneak back to their rooms.

And still Hecate does not come home.

She must fall asleep at some point, though she tries her very best not to, because she wakes with a start and finds herself nose to nose with a pair of boots as Hecate tries to fit her key into the door around Pippa’s sleeping body.

“Hecate?” She blinks blearily up at her, wishes she were only dreaming the dark frown that clouds Hecate’s face.

“You shouldn’t be here, Pippa.” It’s the same cold voice and Pippa reaches out and unthinkingly brushes a hand down Hecate’s shin where she stands beside her. Hecate hisses and steps back, her keys abandoned in the door.

“Sorry, sorry - I -” Pippa moves to rise but her legs are numb and she collapses back down. A small flicker passes across Hecate’s face and suddenly she’s crouching before her.

“You can’t be here. You need to leave.”

“But why? Hecate - what is going on? First you leave the broomstick competition without so much as a goodbye - do you even know how worried I was? Do you? The you disappear like a well performed transfer. I’ve _looked_ for you. I’ve looked everywhere. Then you turn down Spellwend’s - we were supposed to go _together_ \- we always said it would be us - _together_. Now you’re here and work with that - that - _women -_ “ She gasps for breath, all the panic and pain of the last few months leaving her lungs in rush,  “She’s positively vile, Hecate, what could you possibly learn from her?”

But Hecate looks over her shoulder at Pippa’s words, as if fearful that so much as speaking Broomhead’s name aloud will conjure her before them. Though in Pippa’s brief interaction with the woman she wouldn’t put it past her

Hecate’s eyes return to hers. They’re less strange than they were in the green flame of the magic fire, but still distant and inscrutable to Pippa.

“Hecate? Hiccup?” She reached out and cups Hecate’s face in her hand, holding her gently, relieved when she doesn’t pull away. “What’s going on? Why did you run?” Hecate closes her eyes and leans into her more and Pippa brings her other hand up to brush a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.  “What has she done to you?” She whispers.

But it’s the wrong thing to say and Hecate’s eyes fly open, she’s up and out of Pippa’s grasp before Pippa can blink, hands back on the keys in the door.

“Hecate - please -!”

She scrambles to her feet as Hecate throws open the door. In the glimpse of the room beyond Pippa notes it’s spare - even sparer than Hecate’s room from their school days - so spare it’s as if no one even really lives there.

“Go away, Pippa.” Hecate turns in the door and glares at her, eyes looking past her rather than at her. “This is no place for you. Go back to your school and your friends and your fashion magazines. I haven’t time for this.”

Pippa feels tears gathering in her eyes “But,” she whispers, confusion splintering through her chest, “You’re my best friend?” It comes out as a question and Hecate pauses midway through closing the door. Their eyes meet and for a moment Pippa thinks she’s going to let her in.

Instead she laughs humorlessly, an eyebrow arching, until Pippa gets the unnerving sensation that she’s being mocked. “Is that what you thought?”

Too shocked to reply, Pippa starts forward anyway, determined to argue, unwilling to back down.

“You always did have quite the imagination, Miss Pentangle. Now go - before I call campus security. Or unless you’d like an interview with Broomhead again?”

Pippa gapes at her, heat rising in her cheeks, heart slamming in her chest.

“That’s what I thought,” Hecate’s hand tightens on the doorknob. “Now go.”

The door slams shut and Pippa doesn’t need a spell to force her legs to move this time, she doesn’t even feel her legs as she walks numbly to the stairs and down into the gathering dawn. She doesn’t know how she gets back to Spellwend’s only that she cries the whole way home.

The sun rises swiftly behind her as she flies, hot and painful. A constant burn against her back.

______

Pippa writes to her. Daily. At first hurt, worried letters. Later hurt, angry ones. Hecate reads them and then burns them in the fire of her room, the only time she ever lights it, weeping all the while.

She hardly sleeps. And when she does she dreams of Pippa’s soft brown eyes, of her warm body, her pink lips. She wakes up shaking and stands under scalding water in the dorm bath until the rest of the hall begins to stir and she creeps back to her room. Pulls on her black dress over her aching skin and returns to Broomhead, accepts whatever punishment is doled her way for whatever misdeemer Broomhead decides she’s committed. Lack of focus. A wrinkle in the fabric of her skirt. A wisp of hair out of place or an answer that doesn’t come with enough promptness.

At first she’s unsure of Broomhead, fearful and trembling in her presence. But she finds it’s much easier to submit to her, to give herself over to Broomhead’s utter control, her exacting standards for how Hecate should live her life, of who she should be. It’s far easier than thinking of Pippa.

Of Pippa’s soft, brown eyes. _Broomhead’s magic reaches out and pinches her sharply._

Of Pippa’s warm body. _The magic tugs roughly at her braid until she whimpers._

Of Pippa’s sweet pink lips. _Focus_ , Broomhead hisses in her ear and Hecate feels something wash over her, a phantom hand at her neck, caressing, before unseen nails dig into her skin.

She focuses. Drowns out all thoughts of Pippa with thoughts of spells. Potions. Chants. Grimoires. Runes. The science of casting. The physics of transference.

Her power thrums through her like an electrical current. _Control_ , Broomhead hisses.

She controls. Forces her magic into the tight space that Broomhead allows her to exist in. Studies The Code until her eyes are aching, knees are aching from kneeling on the cold floor at Broomhead’s feet. Heart still aching from things that can never be.

Slowly she comes into her magic. Feels the power that stems from utter mastery of it. It’s a heady sensation - something in her life she can command at last. She no longer fears her gifts. She can transfer farther than anyone she knows, release spells faster than anyone as well - and with far greater potency and accuracy.

No spell is too arcane, no potion is too complex. She understands the ingredients as she’s come to understand herself - willing to obey if only simply to be given a purpose.

And the more she succeeds, the more Broomhead’s eyes glint in flames of the fire. The more the phantom touch softens, brushing down her body until she’s trembling, aching in the way she does for Pippa. She flushes with the same shame, the same fear of her body’s betrayal. Broomhead’s eyes are dangerous she circles her, watching as she quivers, uses her magic on Hecate until she nearly pleads, nearly gives herself over.

But it’s not Broomhead she wants. And it’s not the same as she feels for Pippa. Pippa who has never done more than hold her hand, or kisses her cheek, or hug her close. Has never touched her like this, never will touch her like this. She tries not to think of Pippa but she does, guilt and humiliation burning in her stomach until Broomhead releases her and she stumbles back to her dorms, knees bruising as she hits the floor, forehead pressed against the wooden boards as she comes, hand working between her legs, Pippa’s name stuttering from her lips.

Broomhead knows, she realizes. Knows when the letters stop coming and Hecate discovers a fragment of one in the ashes of Broomhead’s sickly green fire instead of her own. Hecate is crouching in the cinders, fingers sooty as she tries to piece together Pippa’s words, tears on her lashes when Broomhead finds her.

Or at least Hecate thinks that’s what happened. It’s days before Broomhead releases her from where she hangs suspended in the air amongst the peaked arches of the classroom ceiling, thoughts hazy and memory hazier. In fact, she doesn’t remember much of what all had come to pass to land her in such a predicament, if she really thinks about it.

So she doesn’t think about it.  

It’s a small price to pay, she decides, in exchange for how easily it makes her not want to think of Pippa anymore either. She buries her feelings down, presses them into a space so small within her heart that most days she scarcely remembers they’re there at all. Instead it’s just the grey-green gloom of the classroom, the dark sky on the rare moments she returns to her dorm, her small, hard bed, and cold, phantom fingers that prick, and stroke, and pinch at her skin.

She graduates top of her class. She wins every fellowship, every academic competition, every accolade. Letters pour in with job offers, fellowships, further opportunities for study. She knows because she finds their fragments when she cleans out the grate. They sit in chard, nearly translucent tatters in her palm and she swallows, heart twitching her her chest.

She should have realized Broomhead never intended to let her leave.


	2. Chapter 2

Time passes and Hecate never responds to her letters.

She doesn’t mean to, but gradually she writes less frequently. First every other day, then several times a week. She’s in her senior year before she realizes a month has gone by and she hasn’t written once. It feels strange, like another loss entirely, and she cries. Sharp, harsh tears like she hasn’t in several years. But now her tears are tinged with bitterness. With betrayal.

Some nights she dreams of Hecate. Dreams of her eyes in the strange, green flames. Dreams of saving her. Nights like that she awakens, sweaty and terrified, and sits up for the rest of the night, wracked with guilt and anxiety that she should have done more.

She takes lovers. She tries to forget. Inevitably when the dreams come they try to console her, urge her back to sleep with words and kisses, growing angry when she pushes them away. Her relationships never last long.

She graduates top of her class. Top marks and second best from any school aside from a witch from Weirdsister’s. _Broomhead’s student_ , people whisper behinds their hands in thrilled but hushes voices. _Her finest yet_. Or so they say.

But Hecate doesn’t emerge from the halls of Spindletwist. Pippa knows because she reads every publication Hecate produces. Studies them like the textbooks that are strewn around her bed for her Teachers’ Training course, hunts for clues - as if the academic texts can tell her why.

 _Why_. That haunting, painful question that batters at her heart and drives lovers from her bed.

She misses Hecate with such an acute pain, still, after all these years that she nearly flies out to see her again. To demand answers. To ensure she’s safe. But she doesn’t.

_Is that what you thought?_

The memory of Hecate’s sharp, brittle words vibrate through her, stilling her movements each time she reaches for her broom. Since that night there have been painful times where she’s doubted her sanity. Played over every moment she can think of in all the years she’s known Hecate, tries to filter it through the lense that it really was just her imagination that tricked her into thinking they ever so were so close.

One night, she jolts from a dream where Hecate’s mouth moves tenderly against her, hot, and wet, and eager between her legs. It’s a far different sensation than the dream induced fear and she lays breathing hard in the dark as the minutes tick quietly by.

She never realized what her feelings were for Hecate until now. She cries again, at a loss. But it helps. It helps to hold Hecate in her heart in this new light, to wish her the best. It helps with the bitterness, though not with the fear for her safety. It doesn’t answer _why_.

When she opens her school, the first year is a difficult one, rocky in all the expected ways, and in unexpected ways to boot. There’s a lot more politics involved than she anticipates, a lot more maneuvering around the outrage that comes her way for her untraditional methods. But her students emerge at the end of the year with some of the top marks in the country and after that enrollment nearly triples.

It’s exhausting, and rewarding, and she determinedly pushes Hecate to the back of her mind.

She doesn't dream at all those first few years. She hasn’t the time.  
______

By the time Hecate is twenty-seven she’s easily the most capable witch in the country. Broomhead takes her to conventions, and displays, and sits in the front row of the audience at all her academic lectures, eyes fixed on her, the same hungry expression lingering in her gaze. Except there’s a smugness to it now. She knows Hecate won’t resist her. She knows she won’t run.

And Hecate supposes it’s true. She wouldn’t have anywhere to run, should she even be able to imagine a life other than the one she lives. She’s respected enough in certain circles, ones that deal in strict, unwavering traditionalism. But it’s been years since she’s found a scrap of an offer letter in amongst the charred bits of wood in the fireplace.

She knows because she’s looked.

So she lives her life, yields to Mistress Broomhead and excels in all she does. Until one day Broomhead’s now familiar magic twists around her and pulls her from her chair and into the center of the room.

Emerging from the gloom, Broomhead paces around her, shadows making her features look gaunt and waxy.

“It’s time you take a pupil of your own, Hecate.” Her voice is soft, soft and yet commanding. Hecate closes her eyes.

“Mistress?” She stands uncertainty and suddenly there are the phantom hands, rough against her skin as they haul her shoulder blades back, stretching them until she winces.

“What have I said about slouching, Hecate?”

“I’m sorry, Mistress.”

Broomhead tuts and resumes her circling.

“I have a number of potential... _candidates_.” Her voice caresses the word and Hecate’s stomach clenches. “You’ve learned how to control your magic, you’ve learned what it’s like to submit to a witch whose power exceeds your own. Now you shall do the same. Magic is growing weaker, Hecate. And you know what that means?”

“Only the strongest will prevail,” She recietes dutifully. But for the first time in years she allows herself to think of Pippa. She checks her thoughts when Broomhead comes closer, breath against the back of her neck.

“That’s right, Hecate. Only the strongest.” Broomhead holds out the resumes and let’s them slip through her fingers before Hecate can take them. They scatter at her feet and Broomhead narrows her eyes. “Pick them up. Select the most powerful. I personally will visit her, just as I visited you when you were a girl. When you were young, and weak, and,” her eyes bore down into Hecate’s from where she kneels on the floor, fingers sorting the papers into order, “hopelessly in love with that _silly, little girl_.”

Hecate flushes. Knows that Broomhead’s caught her lapse in thoughts, knows she’s always been able to read her.

Broomhead sweeps down until she’s level with Hecate, cold fingers coming out to hold her chin in a vice. It’s rare that Broomhead physically touches her and Hecate freezes, tries not to breath, tries not to blink. “How young and foolish you were to think she could ever love you.” Broomhead’s breath is damp against her face and Hecate suppresses a shiver. Thinks again of Pippa. Thinks of her warm, brown eyes. Clear as anything in her mind suddenly after all these years.

Broomhead hisses and releases her as through burned.

“Oh, Hecate. Still? What a pity.”

Once Broomhead is gone, she uses her punishment of spinning helplessly in midair amongst the dusty, dankness of the rafters to think. She starts by reaching out to test her magical bonds. She assesses everything she knows about Broomhead’s magic after years of close study, and everything she’s learned about her own.

She stares down at where the applications lay once again strewn across the floor and vows that no other girl, no matter how overwhelming her magic, no matter how deep her shame, should ever come to hang midair for days on end, should never know the pinch, or slap, or stroke of Broomhead’s magic beneath her clothes, against her skin.

Breathing deeply she reaches out and feels her invisible bonds. Reaches further and senses Broomhead’s alarms set to alert her should she break free. Summoning her strength Hecate masks her magic, dressing it as Broomhead’s. It makes her feel sick, a greasy residue coiling through her own spells and she swallows convulsively. She eases the bonds off her and disables the alarms, sinking slowly to the ground. Quickly she gathers the applications and holds them to her chest. She doesn't know how yet, but she’ll make sure these girls never come to this place.

Focusing again, she leaves a small ball of her own magic in the center of the room, cloaked beneath Broomhead’s. She knows the power of the spell. The message it will send when Broomhead discovers it. For Broomhead’s power as long since ceased to exceed her own.

She leaves it as her warning.

The night air is cool, but it feels like a balm against her skin, and she tugs her sleeves lower down her arms as she once again uses Broomhead’s magic to summon a broom. She could transfer, she supposes, but to where? She has no destination in mind, no place to call a home. Not anymore.

Briefly she considers Pippa. But Pippa surely hates her now. She doesn’t know why it still hurts so much. The idea of Pippa loathing her should come as a relief. Shivering with adrenaline, she kicks off the ground and into the night sky.

Once she is far, far from Weirdsister’s she lets her hair down with her own magic. It tangles and blows in the wind, free and unbound.  
______

It takes her several tries to find a magical community with a help wanted sign, but when she does, she lingers until the sunrises and the streets begin to fill. She tries to ignore the gnawing hunger in her stomach beneath the nervous flutter, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to will time to pass more quickly. Fortunately, the shop is an apothecary and they’re glad to have her, awed by her skillset and her vast knowledge. It makes her enough to find a sparse room and little else. But it’s enough.

Still, she’s not used to her days being her own. To her life being her own. There’s suddenly so much time. And time is the last thing she wants. Time leads to thinking. And thinking inevitably leads to Pippa. To Broomhead. To darkness.

But Pippa, for her part, is unavoidable, it seems. Hecate shudders as she passes shop windows and sees Pippa’s face, Pippa’s body, plastered across various glamor magazines and tabloids, her smile bright and happy. Gritting her teeth she walks by, pushing down the twinging in her heart, low in her stomach, for what can never be.

The year crawls by and she uses her free time to write academic papers more liberally than Broomhead ever allowed her. She gets published in most of the best journals and it provides her enough of a cash flow to move to a slightly more furnished room. She gets a raise at the end of her first year and donates the money to scholarship programs for bright young witches, hoping more than ever to direct girls out of Broomhead’s clutches.

She keeps to herself. Nods at the customers and is quick with their orders, is dutiful in her Well Mets but says little else in terms of pleasantries. Her employers give up trying to draw her out and settle into simply being glad of her.

She hasn’t had a conversation of more than a few words in over a year when one afternoon a plump woman with graying red hair pokes her head into the backroom where Hecate is stocktaking.

“The room is off limits to patrons, I’m afraid. If you wait behind the counter, I will be with you in a moment.”

“Oh, no need, I’m not here for any brews or salves.” The woman’s blue eyes twinkle and she steps into the room and settles herself on the large crates that are stacked beside Hecate’s chair. Hecate stares.

“You are Hecate Hardbroom, are you not?”

“I - yes.” Her words are slow yet clipped once they emerge and the woman must sense the distrust in Hecate’s gaze because she draws out a tube of biscuits from her pocket and offers one over. “Gingersnap?”

They are Hecate’s favorite, but she shakes her head. “I must ask you to wait outside, this room is for employee’s only.”

The woman laughs merrily and studies her. “I think you’ll change your mind once you hear why I’ve come. Or, at least, I do hope you will.” She fishes out a biscuit and tucks the remainder back into her pink knit sweater, swinging her feet a bit as she munches. “I’m Ada Cackle,” she says around a mouthful of biscuit. “Well Met.”

“Well Met,” Hecate automatically raises her hand.

“I’m newly the Headmistress of Cackle’s Academy.”

Hecate drops her hand, recognition sparking within her. “Cackle’s. One of the oldest and most esteemed witching institutions in the country.”

“Yes, well.” Ada sighs and considers her again. “I fear our reputation just isn’t what it used to be - or won’t be, in short order. Our girls are coming to school more unprepared than ever. Their magic weaker than it once was.”

 _Only the strongest will prevail_ , Hecate thinks automatically, clenching her jaw to keep the words at bay.

But Ada looks at her knowingly. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Hecate Hardbroom.” Hecate swallows with difficulty but Ada continues. “Top of your class at Spugworth’s, top at Weirdsister’s. Took your teachers’ training by correspondence but received top marks in that as well. Apprenticed for nine years to Wilhelmina Broomhead.”

Hecate’s mouth goes very dry.

“I wonder,” Ada murmurs, looking at Hecate intently, “why a witch such as yourself is working in an apothecary shop, in a remote village, in the middle of practically nowhere.”

Blinking down at the floor, Hecate can’t explain. Hasn’t ever stopped for long enough to grasp that there could be any other explanation than _to survive_.

But Ada’s voice is very gentle when she says, “And yet, you’ve published some of the most remarkable academic papers this century has seen.” Head coming up, Hecate feels a blush steal across her cheeks.

“Cackle’s has a reputation of being a traditional school. We set high standards. We operate in the spirit of working to improve our student’s minds. ‘Strive’ is our motto. We need a strong leader to bring out the best in our girls, to make sure they work hard and do their utmost.” Ada pauses and surveys her over the tops of her glasses.

“Willamina Broomhead’s skills as a witch are legendary. But so, I’m afraid, is her reputation for discipline. Strictness is needed at Cackle’s, but punitive measures are not. We must agree without any negotiation, on that point, if you are to come serve as Deputy Head.”

“D - Deputy - Head - ?” She sits rigidly in her chair, fingers knotted together in a way that would have Miss Broomhead seething.

“Yes. Are we clear on the matter that corporal punishment will not be tolerated at Cackle’s?”

Gaping, Hecate nods, stomach flipping as her mind struggles to catch up.

“And do you accept my proposal?”

Hecate nods again, forcing down the tears that threaten to well at the base of her eyes. A school - she’ll be returning to a school. It’s the only life she’s ever really known. The only place she’s ever called a home. Again she nods, voice weak as she gasps out, “Yes, Miss Cackle.”

Ada pauses halfway off up from the boxes and laughs. “Ada. If we’re to work together you may call me Ada.”

“Yes, Miss Cackle.”

Sighing, Ada shrugs good naturedly. “Well, we’ll work on it.” She chuckles again as she makes for the door. “Give your two weeks notice, my dear. I expect you at nine o’clock am on the 7th of August. We’ll get you settled in your rooms and begin to prep with the rest of the staff for the coming term.”

“Why me?” It’s out of her mouth before she can stop herself and Ada turns, eyes bright, and blue, and kind.

“Because,” she says simply, “Above all, Cackle’s is a place for fresh starts. Second chances. We look forward to you joining us.”

Hecate blinks.

And Ada is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Hecate Hardbroom is the very last person on her mind when Pippa attends the Western Witching Educators’ Conference.

It’s been over ten years since the day Hecate turned her away and she believes her heart to be mended. Not fully smooth and whole, but enough that it should be able to hold together should she look up and have their eyes meet across a crowded room.

It doesn’t.

Hecate’s hair is up in a braided bun. It’s severe, and yet it suits her, showing off her sharp cheekbones and dark eyes.

Eyes that slide away quickly from her own.

_Oh._

Heart thudding, Pippa keeps track of her as the conferences speaker takes the stage and there’s a shuffling for seats. Her stomach flips and she feels her cheeks warm, can’t stop the feeling at floods her at how beautiful Hecate looks and how completely undone that makes her feel.

She hardly pays attention to the lecture. Hardly hears a word. She knows Hecate has escaped Broomhead’s clutches, keen as she’s been on keeping tabs on her when she can. But seeing her.  _Seeing_ her. Tears prick her eyes and she can’t hold in a laugh that bubbles up, her seat mates turning to frown at her reproachfully.

But she’s Pippa Pentangle. Headmistress of Pentangle’s Academy: A  _Modern_ School for Witches  _and_  Wizards. She’s used to being frowned at reproachfully.

It makes her want to laugh again. The way matters of her mind are treated versus matters of her body. How she can be splashed across every tabloid, every gossip rag, every glamour magazine, until there’s nothing left to be said about the beauty of her hair, or her legs, or her breasts - and yet someone somewhere always finds there’s more to say - but when it comes to her mind, her skills as an educator, or the undeniable success of her school, she’s met with cool dismissal.

Clapping a hand over her mouth she scolds herself. This is hardly the place to go funny over it all. It’s just that Hecate Hardbroom is sitting rows away from her. Looking _beautiful._  Alive and well. Her eyes are sharp and focused, no longer glassy or tinted with green flames.  _Beautiful_.

Fingers rolling her program into tinier and tinier spirals, she loses the train of the lecture and comes to, only to find the paper in her hands rumbled beyond recognition. It takes her a moment to realize the speaker has concluded as the chairs shift around her and her fellow attendees stand.

Cursing her distraction, she spots Hecate making her way towards the door and hurries after her. She’s in the hallway by the time Pippa makes it through the crowds and she turns a corner to a more deserted corridor right as Pippa catches up.

Her hand finds the crook of her arm. “Hecate?” She’s not expecting the way Hecate flinches, her body coiling as she whirls around, eyes bright with a different kind of fire - not green - but aflame all the same. She seems to relax slightly when she realizes it’s Pippa, but only for a fraction of a second before her shoulders stiffen and her gaze cools.

“Miss Pentangle?”

Pippa balks. “Hiccup? I’m so glad to see you. Are you alright? I’ve been so worried.”

“Alright? Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Twisting her fingers nervously Pippa shrugs, all at once off balance. “It’s just - the last time we saw each other -”

“I believe I made myself clear.”

Pippa flinches, tears pricking at her eyes. “Oh.” Still, she rallies herself, considers what she knows about Hecate. About Broomhead. Pushed forward anyway, determined to make nice. “I heard you were made Deputy at Cackle’s. Congratulations.”

“Yes.” Hecate eyes her. “So nice to work at a _respectable_ institution. Though I can’t imagine you know what that’s like.”

It’s so mean that it knocks the breath out of her and she nearly staggers from the force of Hecate’s words. “My school does very well for itself -”

“Some would say.” Hecate intones, dragging her eyes over Pippa’s body in way that makes it clear that Hecate’s aware of the gossip rags.

Blushing, she suddenly feels foolish and small in the heels that so often lend her confidence and power. That make her  _happy_. She stiffens, smarting. “Well then. I would say it was nice to see you again, but perhaps it’s best if we steer clear of each other. Never mind that Pentangle’s bested your school in marks last term.”

“All except for potions.” Hecate’s eyes glint.

“All except.”

They glare at each other and Pippa softens, caving beneath how her heart aches for Hecate, under the weight of how much she misses her. She shifts closer but Hecate stiffens, her chin coming up as she stares Pippa down.

“Good day, Pippa.” She turns on a heel and dissolves into the air.

And Pippa stands in the hall for a long, long time after, eyes never leaving the spot where Hecate has vanished.

______

It’s at a gala that Ada pleads her into attending not long after that Hecate spots Pippa across the room. It’s a mixed group of witches and wizard and she finds herself pulled into conversation with a very dry, very pompous headmaster of a local wizards’ school. She can’t seem to keep her eyes off Pippa however. Nor can anyone else it seems for that matter, as Hecate counts the eyes tracking Pippa’s golden figure as she crosses and collects a drink from the bar.

An equally golden wizard siddles up beside her and touches her waist, speaking softing in her ear and Hecate loses track of the conversation as her stomach twists. Pippa shifts slightly and a photographer appears from thin air,  gesturing her back towards the wizard, snapping photo after photo of the pair as the golden wizard’s hand dips lower and lower down Pippa’s back.

Pippa smiles and laughs at the camera and Hecate suddenly inhales sharply, causing her companion to stop midsentense and stare at her. Not caring if she’s being rude, Hecate ignores him, focusing on Pippa instead. On the way her bright smile contrasts with the tightness around her eyes, the way her shoulders stiffen ever so slightly as the wizard’s hand moves lower still.

“Excuse me.” She transfers and is at Pippa’s side in a moment.

“Miss Pentangle. Might I have a word?” Pippa’s eyes widen and she steps towards Hecate so quickly that the photographer has to stagger back.

“Hecate. Lovely to see you. Enjoying the evening?” Pippa’s voice is bright and false as her smile but Hecate can see the sheer relief behind her eyes.

“Quite.” They pause awkwardly, the wizard lingering hopefully just behind Pippa. But the photographer charges forward, knocking him to the side in his excitement.

“Pentangle’s and Cackle’s - here’s a real treat. Two rival school. Two vastly different pedagogies.  _Which Witch?_  readers will eat this up. Now, smile you two.”

The flashbulb burns her eyes and Hecate scowls at the camera. A flick of her fingers and suddenly smoke is rising from the instrument, the cameraman stuttering in confusion.

“Oh dear now,” Pippa says, stepping forward and inspecting the device. “Overheated. Poor thing. Here - “ she tips her glass over the flames, Hecate catching her wrist a moment too late.

“Pippa watch out - alcohol is - “

“Flammable, I know. Good thing I never drink at these things.”

The cameraman is sputtering indignantly but Hecate can hardly hear him. Everything falls away aside from the feel of Pippa’s wrist, warm in her hand, and how close they are standing. How much this feels like old times. Before Broomhead. Before Hecate realizes she’d like nothing more but to close the distance between them and -

She jerks back and wipes her hands hurriedly on her dress. Pippa’s looking at her, eyes wide and open, and hopeful, and her heart can’t take it. It’s not allowed. It’s never been allowed. Not with Pippa then. And not with Pippa now. After all, what makes her different than the smarmy wizard who is still lurking just behind them or to Broomhead for that matter?

Feeling sick she backs away. She hears Pippa call out to her but she’s already moving through the room before remembering she can transfer. Turning on the spot brings her head around and she catches Pippa’s gaze. She watches the hurt expression on her face with regret as she winks out.

______

They don’t meet again for another five or so year and then it’s at another conference. Hecate’s in the bathroom washing her hands when the stall behind her opens and Pippa steps out. They stare at each other through the mirror as Pippa joins her at the sinks, an oppressive silence rising between them.

Hecate forces her eyes down and summons a towel to dry her hands. She can feel Pippa’s eyes on her. Feels the weight of Pippa’s anger towards her. Bears it because it’s no less that what she deserves. She lingers with the towel to put off having to squeeze past Pippa to leave the narrow room. But when she looks up, Pippa is already gone.

_____

By their late thirties Pippa’s still the most beautiful witch Hecate’s ever seen. She’s grown in beauty and in confidence. Her school flourishes and somehow she’s learned to work an angle with the tittering, fairweather tabloids -  for they only ever now sing her praises and even promote her image in a slightly more tasteful light. Not that Hecate finds any of it tasteful. Or that she reads them.

She does feel proud of Pippa though. Of her accomplishments. Of her life. Only to catch herself with a stern reminder that she has no right to feel proud. Pippa’s accomplished all these things despite her start in life with Hecate’s presence around her neck like an albatross. Now free of her, Hecate muses, Pippa has bloomed.

And she bloomed too, she realizes. Safe at Cackle’s under the protection of the school’s reputation and Ada’s kind but steely gaze. She finds herself relieved to be back to timetables and lights out, and regular, dependable meals that she doesn’t have to think about planning for herself. She thrives under the discipline and structure of academic life. And so, it seems, do her students.

She’s strict. She’s strict to be sure. And she’s hardly well liked. But the markings increase under her leadership as Deputy and they never miss top listing in national potions rankings. She keeps her promise to Ada. And to herself.

It’s years before she realizes that she’s lonely. Before the adrenaline of escaping Broomhead’s clutches wears off and she finds herself full of restless longings, dreaming of Pippa more than she ought, waking at night in tangled sheets with fire in her blood. But she’s learned how to control her wayward, forceful magic. She knows what it takes. So she learns to control her wayward, forceful desire by pressing it into a small space and only allows it to exist in the darkest, longest hours of the night when she’s alone in the moonlight that spills across her bed.

Magic is all about rules. And so is desire, she decides. And if desire must exist - and it seems to, same as her magic - there must also be rules. It never must be allowed to run free from her. And she must never show it in the light of day, or share it with another being like some trembling, aching confessional.

So in the quiet of the night, she lets herself go. Let’s her mind fall blank, thinks not of Pippa, or of Broomhead, or of any soul as she writhes on the bed, fingers of one hand gripping the sheets as she kneels, fingers of her other bringing her higher and higher until she tips forward, her head dropping to the mattress. Though try as she might, she can’t stop Pippa’s name from tearing from her lips with her release each and every time.

She lays in sick shame for a while after. But inevitably, need wells within her once more. She cries out. Insatiable and hungry, lost and raw, and so very alone as she shatters, a wild thing trembling in the dark.

______

She’s able to avoid Pippa for another decade. It goes by faster than she expects. She’s busy with the school, busy graduating her first classes of witches, sending them out into the world hopefully more prepared than she had been. Hopefully far more confident and their abilities and far less vulnerable.

Rumors come that Broomhead now works for the Council. That she’s risen through the ranks as an official. It turns Hecate’s stomach but she keeps her head down. Keeps her hand tight around the pocket watch she’d used her meger savings to buy when she started at Cackle’s. Feels the twitch of time against her fingers, ticking way the minutes and years, the length of days between her present and the darkness of her past.

She determinedly tries not to think of it as between her present and when she and Pippa would lay together in the sun. Practice their broomstick routine. Sit elbow to elbow in the dining hall, elbow to elbow in class. She shoves aside memories of Pippa’s fingers in her hair, gentle as she braided starflowers into it one afternoon by the lake. How Pippa had knelt before her with laughing eyes, so close that Hecate could count every freckle on her nose and cheeks.

Something had risen in her then, a feeling that had always been beneath the surface, now fully formed in warm desire. She’d wanted to kiss her. Wanted more than to kiss her.

_Pippa finishes her task, humming a mindless tune as she works and Hecate hardly breathes for fear she’ll break the spell, or break a boundary and break them both. Laughing voices from further down the shore float in the hazy day, calling out for Pippa until she sighs and stands, hands on her hips, nose wrinkling down at Hecate._

_“Be right back.”_

_Hecate watches her go, watches the sun on her shoulders and the wind in her hair as she picks her way across the rocky shoreline to the gaggle of girls sunning themselves on wide, glistening rocks._

_Tugging out a book, Hecate shivers at the unfamiliar sensation of the breeze on her neck, reaching up to gently touch the flowers in her hair, warmth still spreading through her from Pippa’s touch._

_She reads for a time until suddenly a dark shadow blots out the words on the page and she  glances up, heart tightening. Until she remembers that all her bullies are currently fawning over Pippa, surely urging her to stay with them in the sun down the shoreline rather than return to where Hecate sits beneath a willow._

_But it’s no one she knows. Instead it’s a tall, stately woman Hecate has never seen before. The woman sits - or rather dissolves until she suddenly is upon the picnic blanket beside Hecate - without invitation, without preamble. Magic flows off of her in waves, pulsing, powerful, heady magic that makes Hecate gulp, her fingers loosening on the spine of the book until it slips from her fingers and tumbles to her lap._

_“Clumsy,” The woman remarks, her voice deep and very rich. For some reason it makes Hecate blush. “Hecate Hardbroom. Do you know who I am?”_

_She shakes her head, eyes drawn up as if she can’t resist the strange magnetism of this woman. “Wilhelmina Broomhead. Well Met.”_

_Hecate claps a hand to her forehead. “I’ve read your papers - very nearly all of them, I think. Well Met, Miss Broomhead.” Her heart clatters in excitement and she ducks her head shyly._

_“I’ve been looking for a pupil for you for a long, long time, Hecate. Someone who has raw, magical potential. Someone who could benefit from order, from discipline. From learning how to control their magical gifts, rather that letting their gifts control them.”_

_Hecate flushes, thinking of all the times her magic has sparked and sputtered beyond her control, too restless and boundless for the container of her body. She thinks of how in these times how Pippa takes her hand. It always makes her feel like she can do anything._

_Unthinkingly her eyes travel down the beach to Pippa, still standing with her back to them, the beautiful witches of their year grouped around her._

_“Ah.” Miss Broomhead looks from Pippa and back to her, a slow smile curling at the edges of her crimson mouth. “Young love. How quaint.”_

_Again, Hecate flushes. Her throat works to try to deny it but when nothing comes, Broomhead smiles that slow, curl of a smile once more._

_“I can teach you how to control that, too. To overcome it. You are exceptional. A Hardbroom. The last of your kind. You needn’t throw away your ability on some simpering, foolish beauty who will never return your affections. Come and study with me and I will make you into the greatest witch of your age.”_

_“Pippa’s my best friend.” It’s little more than a whisper and Broomhead laughs, a smooth but hard sound, like rocks clinking together in a current._

_“Is she now? And yet there she is, down the shore with those other minxes. Not here with you. You know what they’re talking about down there, don’t you?”_

_Hecate shrugs and Broomhead curls her fingers. Suddenly, the conversation can be heard clear as if the group is sitting right beside them._

_“Why do you spend time with her, Pip? She’s downright drab if you ask me.”_

_“Well, I didn’t ask you.” Hecate watches as in the distance Pippa’s hands come up to her hips, her posture defiant._

_“I know you pity her,” says another girl, “but you needn’t. Her type likes to be alone. Serves her right too for being such a snob.”_

_“Hecate’s not a -”_

_“Look, Pippa, we only have your best interests at heart. Can you only imagine what she’ll be like when you start to go steady with a wizard? She’ll hex his eyes out for so much as looking at you. And wizards are going to look. I know for a fact Brenda Hinkleton’s brother is sweet on you. And my cousin Eddy says he’d take you out any day of the week. But they never bother asking because every time there’s a dance you disappear with her or the two of you have your noses stuck in a book. You’ll be alone forever if you keep this up, Pip. That girl brings you down - you’re only going to regret it.”_

_Broomhead cuts the spell but Hecate can see in the distance where Pippa’s shoulders sag. How she plops down and on the rocks facing the girls and leans in, speaking seriously to them and they all shuffle closer and listen intently. She doesn’t need the spell to figure out what’s being said._

_Beside her, Broomhead shifts, drawing her focus back. “They’re right, you know. You will only drag that girl down. Down from her rightful place as a bit of glimmer on the arm of a rich wizard. But you are meant for more, Hecate. You needn’t marry. Needn’t spend your time dreaming of babies or picket fences. Not when you have such raw, untapped power within you. Not when you could be great.”_

_Tears prick her eyes and Hecate lowers her head, startling with Broomheads fingers come up and trace along the flowers that glow like stars against her dark hair. “Flower crowns and foolish nonsense.” She smiles at Hecate in that slow way of hers and the flowers in her hair dissolve, leaving it to cascade down around her shoulders._

_“End things with the girl. Leave this place and come learn the most arcane, the most secret magical arts. I await your arrival.” She passes her a slip of paper and Hecate recognizes the college name on it. It’s not the one she plans to attend with Pippa. But maybe that’s for the best._

_When she looks up, Broomhead is gone, dissolved into the humid air and Hecate blinks as the sky suddenly seems overly bright above her._

_“Hecate?” Pippa’s back at her side, cheeks flushed, looking concerned as she kneels beside her. “You took your hair down?” She reaches out to brush at a lock but Hecate jerks away._

_“I didn’t like it.”_

_Pippa blinks at her slowly, cheeks a little pinker, but takes it in stride. “Oh, okay. But for what it’s worth, I thought you looked beautiful.”_

_Hecate feels her face burn and returns to her book, slipping the bit of paper from Broomhead into the back cover._

_She’ll enjoy one last day in the sun with Pippa, she decides._

_The broomstick competition is tomorrow._

Hecate jerks out of her revery to a knock on the door. Thoughts of Broomhead and of Pippa pushed from her mind as a first year student enters the potions lab and hesitantly, fearfully, asks her for help on she assignment.

 _Fearfully_.

But not in the way she feared Broomhead. Never in that way. Instead it’s due to a well-arched eyebrow, a bat-like demeanor, and rigorously high standards.

But help for anyone who dares to seek it out.

She nods at the girl to take a seat, magically raising the chair so that the child is high enough to lay her assignment across the desk. Side by side, they discuss it, Hecate correcting her when she stumbles, prompting her when she forgets.

She doesn’t melt into softness, her sharp edges hold their shape.

But there a warm feeling that creeps through her as they work, until the girl grasps the concepts and is suddenly scribbling away, her quill a blur.

Hecate sits back, pleased.


	4. Chapter 4

Mildred Hubble is going to ruin her life. Of all the witches to be chosen to compete in a Spelling Bee against another school - against _Pippa’s school_ \- it has to be a girl so reckless, so clumsy, that she can hardly do up her shoelaces, let alone stir her cauldron the proper amount of times.

In the days leading up to Pippa’s arrival, fear clenches at Hecate’s stomach. She’s hard on the girl. Perhaps too hard. But the need to control flares within her, drivers her to drill the girl morning, noon, and night, hissing corrections at her as Ethel Hallow smirks from her other side.

Mildred Hubble is going to ruin her life. And there’s nothing she can do about it but pray Ethel has enough a drive for perfection to see them through the day. Her hopes are rather dashed when Pippa is suddenly standing beside her and Ethel loses her ability to speak due to the presence of _a boy._ It’s a disaster already. Utterly, painfully, a disaster.

She snips at Pippa and Pippa snips back and the children watch them with wide, awestruck eyes - or maybe that’s just because being in Pippa’s presence tends to have that effect on people - and Hecate can’t help but act rather badly behaved.

Because she wants to _win_. To prove that what Pippa glimpsed at Weirdsister’s all those years ago hasn’t made her less of a witch. That’s it’s made her stronger. Better. That her school is every bit as strong as she is. That it wasn’t all a waste. It wasn’t all in vain. That she wouldn’t have been better off if she never left to begin with.

She lies awake that night, feeling Pippa’s magic in the room down the hall, knowing she’s nearby. She keeps her hands atop the covers and doesn’t sleep a wink.

______

After her visit to Mildred, still buzzing from a sugar high, Pippa sits in the window of the guest room she’s been given and watches the stars. She’d already checked on her students to make sure they’re comfortable, settled and managing their nerves in preparation of tomorrow. Now if only she could manage her own.

Picking absently at her nail polish she reviews the day. Hecate’s barbs were to be expected. And it was rather her fault for starting them on it, after all. Only she figures that after all this time Hecate will find it easier to spar verbally than to flounder under the weight of all the unspoken words between them. It’s her way of giving her a reprieve, really. Though her heart’s not really in it.

No, in fact, she can hardly keep her eyes off Hecate, as much as she tries. Thirty years gone by and the longing is still there, sharp and hardly muted despite the passage of time.

She sighs and shivers. She doesn’t want to believe that Hecate’s become like Broomhead. But when she considers the fear in Mildred’s eyes when Hecate had called her name earlier, when she mulls over Mildred’s missing cat, she worries that she might hardly know what Hecate is capable of these days.

And Pippa rises to pace the room, thoughts and stomach churning, all at once dreading and aching for tomorrow.

______

_I’ve, missed you, too, Pipsqueak._

The words echo in her head the entire flight back to Pentangle’s. She had to sternly remind herself that she must not succumb to utter distraction. After all, she has her charges to mind, and she directs them around thunder clouds and the occasional updraft, trying to focus on the journey back home.

But it’s a difficult task. Her hands are anything but steady on her broomhandle as she plays the moment again and again in her mind: the tremble in Hecate’s voice, the way she’d come into her arms so willinging, hands warm and gentle against her back, a thumb stroking softly against the fabric of Pippa’s dress.

It’s almost too much to comprehend. Like a dream.

She wants to shout into the wind. Wants to spin into loop-the-loops, wants to cry. But she simply keeps a watchful eye on Zack and Sapphire, monitoring their stamina for any signs of exhaustion, taking breaks when ever their brooms begin to list or she catches them yawning.

It takes twice as long to return to Pentangle’s as a result, and they’re all a little cold and stiff upon landing. She bundles them off with her deputy for a late dinner and warm baths, making sure they get an extra serving of dessert as a reward for their efforts at the Bee.

Shoulders stiff, she climbs the stairs to rooms, stopping dead when she sees Hecate standing awkwardly at her door.

Her head snaps up at the sound of her footsteps and they stare at each other.

“What are you doing here?” Pippa says at the same time Hecate manages to choke out “I’m sorry.”

They blink at each other and Pippa steps closer. “Why don’t you come in. It’s long past due we talked.”

And it is.

Hecate ducks her head and follows her inside and Pippa watches as her eyes sweep around the room, taking in it’s contents. Pippa nods at a chair and Hecate sits as she lights the fire and summons the tea service, though neither of them move to take their cups.

“I returned the girl her cat.” Hecate says, when the silence grows too heavy, and Pippa feels warmth flare under her breastbone. Hecate’s fingers twitch on the arm of her chair as though she’d said too much, but Pippa can still read her. Even after all this time.

“You’re not like Broomhead, Hecate. You never were. You never will be.”

Hecate’s eyes come up, sharp and wide, but Pippa smiles gently at her. “It’s alright. Cackle’s is lucky to have you.”

“After you left today Ada came and spoke with me.”

“She did?”

Hecate makes a noise of assent her fingers still tapping on the wooden arm of her chair.  “She told me what you did.”

“Oh.” Pippa hardly breathes, hardly dares to move, least she misinterpret what this is about.

“Why did you do it? How did you know to do it? I never wrote you back. I never told you when I - I -”

Pippa shakes her head and brings her palms to rest on her knees, curling them against the fabric of her dress. “I followed your publications. Read every last one. When they stopped being attributed to Weirdsister’s I knew you must have gone elsewhere. It wasn’t easy to find you, but I wasn’t going to give up. I met Miss Cackle at an seminar for educators. She was looking for a Deputy Head, I simply,” Pippa licks her lips, mouth a little dry, “pointed her in the right direction to what she was looking for.”

“What she was looking for?” Hecate’s eyes are on her again. Bright and beetle black.

“Someone who dealt in traditional magic. Someone who was structured and disciplined enough to take on the operational aspects of running a school, all the while lending their abilities to the position of potions mistress. Above all, someone who would have the best interests of the school at heart. Who would protect the students - especially since the falling out with Ada’s sister was so fresh - and raise the next generation of Britain's brightest, keenest witches. Which you have done. Impressively, I might say.”

Hecate drops her head, fingers moving to curl together in her lap. “Why on earth would you trust me with such a thing? Why would Ada?”

Pippa laughs. “I would have hired you myself if you would have had me. But I knew you wouldn’t. And once I told Ada all I knew about you, she agreed it was a good fit. She knows Broomhead’s reputation, you see. More than I did, as it turns out. She helped,” Pippa pauses, stomach fluttering uncomfortably, “fill me in on what you might have experienced as Broomhead’s apprentice. She went to school with Broomhead. Knows what she is made of.”

Hecate’s breath is coming in sharp bursts and Pippa moves slowly, cautiously kneeling until she sits beside Hecate’s chair looking up at her.

“I so wanted to help you. I couldn’t understand why would would leave like that. I thought perhaps it was because word got back to you of what I’d said to those girls that day.”

“Said to those girls? What day -?” Hecate’s eyes are squeezes shut and Pippa carefully rests the palms of her hands on Hecate’s knee’s, touch gentle then firmer when Hecate doesn’t shy away. “Breath, Hiccup.”

“Hiccup.” Hecate’s lips turn up just slightly and she sucks in a breath.

“Another, if you can.” Pippa waits until Hecate’s breath is a little more regular.

“At the lake that day. Before the broomstick display. Remember when the girls called me over? They said that -”

“I know what they said.” Hecate brings a weary hand up to her eyes. “They said that I’d bring you down. That you pitied me and they you’d only regret the time you wasted on me.”

Pippa gapes at her. “How do you know that?”

“Broomhead,” Hecate says simply. “She came while you were gone. She’d been watching us, I suppose. She cast a charm. It allowed us to listen.”

Pippa takes Hecate’s hand from where it shields her eyes, holding it gently in her own. “So then you know what I said to them?”

Hecate shakes her head. “No. She ended the charm. But I watched you. I knew what you were saying.”

Pippa’s quiet for a long time. And then, “What did you think I ways saying, Hecate?” Her voice is very quiet and very sad.

“‘You were agreeing with them.”

Again Pippa grows silent, her fingers still tangled in Hecate’s as she kneels on the rug beside her chair. “I wasn’t agreeing with them.”

Hecate opens her eyes. “You weren’t?”

A tear leaks down Pippa’s face and she shakes her head.

“But you sat down with them. You didn’t even argue.”

“That’s because I was telling them the truth.”

“The truth?”

Pippa lets out a shaky breath, letting go of Hecate to wipe at her eyes before taking her hand back.

“I told them that I’d choose you over anyone, any wizard, every day for the rest of my life. I told them how you made me feel. How happy I was when I was with you. How everything just seemed better when we were together. I told them we were going to be together forever and I didn’t care what people thought about it.”

She laughs shakily and pulls her hand free again to wrap her arms around herself instead. “I didn’t know then what it meant. Years later I ran into Gwendolyn Stormtree and she said she’d known. But it took me years to realize why I cared so much about what happened to you.”

Hecate’s staring at her and Pippa draws her arms more closely to her body.

“I don’t understand.”

Pippa looks up, looks at the waring confusion and hope in Hecate’s dark eyes and shivers a little. “Don’t you?” She asks, rising up on her knees until she can reach forward and barely, barely, brush her fingertips against Hecate’s cheek. She slides back down and studies her fingers. They tingle where she touched Hecate and her heart flutters with a twin sensation.

“I thought that someone had told you. About what I said. And that you didn’t want me in your life the way I wanted you. Later, once I realized what I was feeling, I thought you’d simply known what I hadn’t. And that life with Broomhead was better than life with me.” She ducks her head as the tears come, hot and unwanted as they burn down her cheeks. Hunching forward she bows her shoulders as if her shift in posture can somehow allow her privacy for her grief.

But there are cool, shaking fingers against her chin, pulling her face up, and she gulps in deep breaths to steady herself as Hecate tilts her face until they’re eye to eye. And Hecate’s cheeks are wet as well, eyes soft but filled with regret as she pulls Pippa closer still until they’re forehead to forehead, tears mingling, breath warm against each others skin.

“I only ever wanted you,” Hecate whispers, throat working hard to form the words. They come out slowly, one by one, and Pippa can’t hold back the sob that breaks through her.

“Pippa.” Hecate’s mouth is nearly against hers, just the ghost of a breath and Pippa’s hands come up to hold her face as they breathe one another's air. “Pippa, I was so scared.”

“It’s alright,” Pippa gasps against her lips, heartbreaking and repairing in equal measure. “You’re safe now.”

“I should have kissed you that day down by the lake. I should never have left.” Hecate whispers, tears closing around the words in her throat until she can only gasp around them.  

And Pippa’s hands come up, find the pins in her hair until it unfurls like a river, flooding her shoulders as she slides her fingers along Hecate’s scalp, gathering the dark hair between her fingers until her fingertips poke out like white starflowers.

“I liked the flowers in my hair that day.”

And Hecate breaks. Deep, wracking sobs pulling from within her and Pippa slides her hands down to her shoulders and pulls her close, tucks her against her neck and shoulder and lets her cry. Hecate’s thin back spasms under her hands and Pippa feels tears rise within her as well as they hold each other. She can feel Hecate’s hands on her own back, gripping at the fabric of her dress as if it’s the only thing that holds her together.

It’s a long time before they quiet and Hecate eventually draws back, ducking her head and wiping at her eyes, shoulders hunching much as Pippa’s had before. Pippa reached out and touches her cheek. “Don’t hide, starflower,” she whispers, catching the remaining tears on her fingers and brushing them away. “Don’t hide from me. Not now.”

Hecate breathes in deeply and nods but her shoulders remain tense. She takes Pippa’s hands and squeezes them instead as she breathes slowly. They look at each other, almost shyly.

“I don’t suppose you’re very comfortable down there on the floor?” Hecate’s voice is wry, a front to hide her vulnerability Pippa knows, and she laughs a little, struggling to rise on stiff, numb legs.

It takes a bit of effort and Hecate has to reach down and steady her as her knees lockup and she hisses at they complain from the abuse she’s inflicted on them. “I’m afraid I’ve grown a bit creaky in my old age.”

Hecate’s hands find her own. She squeezes, tighter, and tighter still, throat working once again.

“I - think - you’re beautiful,” she says with great effort and Pippa smiles, removing a hand to reach up to cup her face.

“It’s a mutual feeling. I’m really quite undone by you, if you must know.”

Hecate’s flushes and Pippa tugs her up, leading her to the couch so they can sit together, arm to arm, knee to knee, hands still clasped.

“Tell me what happened? That day at the lake? And after?” She strokes her thumb across Hecate’s skin and Hecate nods tightly, shoulders tensing as she begins to speak.

She tells Pippa about Broomhead’s visit. About what she said. About how she twisted things around until Hecate’s deepest fears seemed like obvious truths. She tells her about her fear of her own magic, and Pippa nods along, remembering. She grows quiet for a long spell and then tells Pippa about Broomhead’s lessons, her disciplines, and then slowly, haltingly, her rewards.

Pippa holds her hand the whole way through, though tears coursed down her cheeks. And Hecate leans into her as if she is an anchor as all of Pippa’s worst nightmares of Hecate’s fate are confirmed in Hecate’s low, wavering voice.

Hecate tells her of preparing for her own apprentice and what follow after. And they both cry together, heads tucking into one another's shoulders, pressing together as if by giving comfort to the other can somehow stay the pain.

When it’s over, Hecate sags against her, eyes glassy in the way that Pippa had seen them many years ago. She gently pulls her up and leads her to her bedroom, murmuring for assent before she magics Hecate into a soft nightgown, fingers brushing tangles from her hair as Hecate sags limply against her side all the while.

She settles her beneath the covers and sits on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to stay in here with you? I’ve slept many nights on the sitting room couch after falling asleep over markings, I don’t mind.”

“Stay,” Hecate mumbles, fingers coming to cup Pippa’s cheek though it looks like it costs her dearly. “Please. Stay with me.”

“Yes,” Pippa breathes, conjuring her own night things into place and slipping in across the bed. Hecate shifts towards her and Pippa takes her in her arms, sighing at the sensation, the warm, real, alive, weight of her. “I’ve got you, Hiccup. I’m right here now.”

Hecate’s eyes flutter shut and Pippa ghosts her lips across her forehead, settling down into the blankets, reassured that Hecate is safe at last.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. Final chapter. Hope it was a good read, even if things were disconcerting in the beginning. Thanks as always for all the support. xoxo

The next morning Hecate wakes and everything around her feels warm and soft. Her night dress, the bed she lies in, the pillow beneath her head, her body -

The body that presses against her own. Blinking her eyes open she sucks in a breath at the blond hair nestles just below her chin. Pippa’s arms are gentle around her, fingers tangled in the fabric of Hecate’s nightshirt in her sleep. Taking another breath she finds every intersection where their bodies touch and flushes, her own hands rising and falling with the movement of Pippa’s back as she breathes.

Her eyes feel dry and gritty, her throat sore from the night before. It all seems like a dream now, like a vivid nightmare that has passed but has left her careworn in its wake. She swallows and Pippa shifts in her arms, hand sliding against her back as she tilts her face up and blinks at her, eyes warm and sleepy, and filled with so much love that Hecate freezes, tensing against the soft bed, and the soft body, and the soft pillows.

Pippa carefully retracts her hand and lays beside her, almost as if she understands, as if she knows exactly what Hecate needs. And she probably does, she reasons. Almost always has.

The thought makes her sniff, tears threatening, but Pippa reaches out and lays a finger against her cheek, stroking softly. “Good morning, Hiccup.” Her voice is deep from sleep and Hecate sighs at the sound. At the feeling of Pippa’s bed around her, at Pippa’s face, gentle and lovely, bathed in the watery sunlight that filters through the window.

Slowly, she relaxes.

“Did you sleep well?” Pippa whispers and Hecate ducks a nod. Her hands are still on Pippa’s back and she shifts them slightly, watching as Pippa sighs happily.

“I don’t think I told you last night - in fact, I know I didn’t - but,” Pippa bites her lip and sighs again, eyes very warm, “I love you.”

Hecate know she must look foolish. But she can’t help it. Her lips curl up and and her cheeks flame and she tries to control her expression but she can’t. Not when Pippa’s looking at her like _that_. So softly, and full of warmth, and yes, she supposes, _love_.

Pippa laughs a little which only confirms her assessment of how she must look. She shuffles closer until they’re nose to nose on the bed. “I’d very much like to kiss you now?”

It’s a question. And Pippa holds back enough that Hecate knows she’s allowed any answer. Allowed a choice. Agency in the matter. Heart blooming with joy that nearly feels painful in it’s intensity, she dips her head in a nod, the movement bringing their lips closer still. And very gently, Pippa closes the distance, lingers only slightly, just enough so Hecate can feel her, before pulling back.

“Okay?” Hecate nods, fingers flitting up to smooth a wisp of hair behind Pippa’s ear, lingering longer than the kiss, against her cheek, and then, against her lips. Pippa presses a kiss to her fingertips and Hecate gasps at the sensation, something sparking low in her belly.

Something forbidden.

But Pippa raises herself up on an elbow, looking warmly down at her. “Would you like,” she smiles, “to get up in have breakfast? Or stay in bed a while longer? Or something else entirely?”

Hecate let’s out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and shifts back a bit so she can see Pippa better. She bites at her lip. “If we stay in bed -” she pauses, uncertain.

“We don’t have to do anything other than have a bit of a lie-in,” Pippa smiles at her.

But Hecate lets her hand move from where it rest on the bed to where Pippa’s knee rests beside her. She strokes her hand over the soft nightgown. “Is this okay?” Glancing up she blushes at the way Pippa’s eyes have fallen shut at her touch.

“Yes,” Pippa breathes, blinking her eyes back open. Hecate moves her hand up to Pippa’s waist, rests it lightly against her side. “And this?”

“Yes.”

Sliding her hand up further she tugs Pippa down until they’re nose to nose again. “And this?” She whispers, and waits for Pippa’s whispered approval before she gently presses their lips together. The kiss is just a brief as before and they part, eyeing each other happily.

“I liked that option, for what it’s worth,” Pippa sighs against her lips and they kiss again, Pippa’s mouth a little bolder and Hecate feels like her brain is stopping short, stopping all communication other than that she must keep kissing Pippa, was only ever made to be kissing Pippa.

Pippa’s mouth moves against her and she presses a kiss against Hecate’s bottom lip, her tongue flicking out and Hecate makes a noise of surprise and need, hands tightening on Pippa’s nightgown. She turns and pulls Pippa with her until Pippa’s above her, elbows on either side on her head as she leans in to deepen their next kiss.

Eventually they grow breathless and Pippa pulls back. “Still alright?”

Hecate can only nod, heart pounding at the sight of Pippa’s mussed hair, her full pink lips and rosy cheeks. “You are the most beautiful witch in the world,” she chokes out, and blushes tenfold, embarrassed by her lack of restraint. But Pippa merely laughs and dips back in to kiss her, parting her lips until their tongues brush and Hecate feels hot lighting race through her skin.

She notes how Pippa doesn’t touch her anywhere other than her face, and hands, and hair, and is nearly moved to tears of gratitude over Pippa’s continued care for her autonomy. She turns her head and kisses Pippa’s cheek.

“I promised myself I’d never do this.” She looks up at Pippa and bites her lip, trying to say so much but unable to fill enough words.

Pippa brushes fingers through her hair very gently. “Make love?”

Hecate blinks in surprise at the phrasing. “Any of it. All of it.”

Warm fingers find her hand and thread their fingers together. “It’s alright, Hecate. If you don’t want to. Even if you never want to. I’m just happy to spend time with you.”

But Hecate shakes her head, tears welling as she struggles to communicate just what she wants. “I promised myself I wouldn’t,” she rasps out, “but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.”

Pippa smiles. “It’s okay to want it, too.”

“Want.” Hecate chokes out. The word suddenly heavy with her, turning her voice low with longing. “Make love?” Somehow Pippa understands the disjointed sentence.

“Desire and love aren’t always one thing, but they can be. I’d like them to be.”

Hecate nods, moving one hand to Pippa’s back and the other to guide her face back down. “I can’t promise -” She doesn't know exactly what she can’t promise. There are too many variables, to many fears that crowd her mind. But Pippa kisses the corner of her mouth and pulls back smiling.

“Think of it as a journey we’re going on together. Not an end goal. I want to be close to you. I want to touch you and have you touch me. Only so long as it feels good, feels right and safe. I love you. I want to show you with my body how much I do. But it’s not a requirement for loving you.”

Hecate tilts their heads together. Breaths Pippa in. Lowers her until she lies atop her, body warm and weighty against her own. “Will you show me?”

“Yes.” Pippa kisses her. Brings a hand up slowly to Hecate’s waist, seems unoffended when Hecate flinches. She watches her face and leaves her hand still for a moment, waiting until the muscles calm and she smooths her hand a little higher and the process repeats.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want you,” Hecate breathes, gritting her teeth in embarrassment as her body clenches beneath Pippa’s touch.

“I know,” Pippa says simply, still warm and calm against her. “But I think -” She pauses and returns her hand to its initial position, smiling when Hecate remains relaxed against her hand. “I think you’re just getting used to me. That’s all. Does it feel right?”

Hecate nods and Pippa moves her hand higher again, resting a warm palm against Hecate until her muscles relax and she returns to the beginning. Slowly Hecate feels herself unwind, inch by inch as Pippa works her hands over her. It’s calming, and yet still erotic, and Hecate finds herself gasping a little as Pippa makes her way up her ribs.

Pippa moves to her other side and begins to gently smooth her hand over Hecate’s muscles. She moves to her shoulders, and then her arms, until their hands meet and Pippa throws a leg over Hecate and sits looking down at her, their hands held up between them.

“Does this feel okay?”

Pippa’s nightdress has ridden up and Hecate breathes in at the exposure of her firm thighs on either side of her hips. She jerks a nod and her fingers find the hem, twisting it as she looks pleadingly up at Pippa. “Off?” Pippa asks and laughs a little when Hecate nods again.

Still she’s unprepared for so much skin. So much of Pippa’s skin. Her toned, long torso and sculpted shoulders, the freckles that dot her chest and breasts. Hecate finds herself breathing very fast and Pippa bites her lip, sitting still as Hecate raises a trembling hand to trance gently down her front.

Growing bolder Hecate brings both hands to Pippa’s chest, cups her with reverent fingers, gasps when Pippa gasps, arching a little. “Sorry,” Pippa blushes, but Hecate shakes her head, dark curls tangling on the pillow.

“No, don’t be. Please. Don’t be.” She watches in continued amazement as her touch changes Pippa’s breathing, notes how warm the skin is under her fingers as Pippa tips her head back, fully submitting to Hecate’s touch.

 _Oh_.

Suddenly unsure Hecate drops her hands and Pippa brings her head back up, eyes blinking open to look at her in concern.

“It’s alright. I like you touching me, Hecate. I like knowing that you’re the one touching me. And I trust you. I trust you so much. I want you to see me like this. I want you to be the one who makes me feel these things.”

Slowly, Hecate raises her hands again. Pippa’s meet her half way and guide her back to her chest, holding them against herself for a moment before tangling her hands in Hecate’s hair as she tips forward and kisses her. “Promise you’ll tell me if this is too much.”

“I will. It’s not.” The kiss intensifies and Hecate whimpers, flames rising in her cheeks. “It’s not quite enough,” she whispers, and Pippa makes a small sound against her ear. And this time it’s Hecate who guides Pippa’s hands, curls them around the edge of her own nightgown and pulls them higher until the garment comes free. She can feel Pippa warm against her hips and she shudders, crossing her arms across her chest despite how much she longs to feel Pippa’s skin against her own.

Pippa places tiny kisses on her shoulders. On her clavicle. In the hollow of her throat. “At your own pace,” she reminds her, breath warm against her skin. She kisses her face and cheeks and simply smiles down at her, whispering sweet things until Hecate relaxes and slides her arms through Pippa’s, until her hands rest upon sharp shoulder blades, bringing her in until they’re chest to chest.

It’s the sweetest feeling in the word and Hecate cries out in relief. It’s comfortable, and yet arousing, warm and gentle, and so very safe. Nothing like Broomhead’s cold phantom presence and the way it drove fear straight through the  longing in her body. She shifts against Pippa and Pippa presses more firmly against her, bringing their mouths together until Hecate’s arching up, trembling in her arms.

“I love you,” Pippa whispers, eyes soft and wet and Hecate pulls her close, strokes her hands down Pippa’s long, warm back and whispers it in return.

Pippa’s mouth moves down her neck. She takes her time. Kisses every freckle, every slope and rise of skin as she works her way lower.

Hecate can’t help the way her body responds when Pippa takes her nipple in her mouth, the wet, hot sensation sending pulsing electricity straight through her. Nor does she try to help it. Not anymore. Not when the sun is bright on the bed and Pippa is warm and real against her; not a phantom in green-gloom or a secret cried into her pillow in the dead of night, but _real_. Real and here and _loving her_.

She arches further, fingers grasping tight at Pippa’s shoulders as she rolls her hips, blushing at her actions and keening when Pippa looks up, eyes dark, and murmurs _keep doing that_.

So she does. Gives herself over as Pippa kisses lower, whispering gentle encouragements into her skin as she traces Hecate’s hip with her tongue, lower still until she’s nestled between Hecate’s thighs, looking up at her with bright, loving eyes.

“Is this okay?”

Hecate nods, eyes pricking. She never expected to feel so safe, never expected to have any of this at all. She swallows tighty and Pippa reaches up and squeezes her hand. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers, then half sobs as Pippa’s mouth meets her heat and she’s overcome with white, hot, pulsing, magic, the likes of which she has never known.  

By the time it subsides, Pippa’s wrapped around her, fingers brushing through her hair and a leg thrown protectively around her own. She can feel the power of Pippa’s own magic, strong, and vibrant, and alert as it washes over them both. Somehow it holds the shame Hecate always feel after such releases at bay, and she takes a shuddering breath, entwining their fingers together.

Pippa looks down at her and there’s something in her eyes that Hecate can’t place. She touches Pippa’s cheek and Pippa blinks, through the look in her eyes only increases.

“I’m going to protect you, always.” Her voice is low and Hecate realizes that the the look is one of ferocity. Of utter fiercity and fire. Pippa’s eyes blaze and she shifts, her posture growing even more protective.

And Hecate realizes all the difference between this kind of posturing and Broomhead’s and she shudders when she finds that she likes Pippa possessive in this way; knows they both know all the reasons why Pippa is suddenly onguard after Hecate’s intense episode of vulnerability.

Hecate catches Pippa’s face between her palms, pulling her closer for a heated kiss. She nips at Pippa’s bottom lip and draws back to watch Pippa’s surprised expression. Slowly, Pippa drops her head and drags her nose against Hecate’s cheek before returning the nip, tongue brushing out to soothe as Hecate gasps.

Swallowing, Hecate looks up at her. Slowly, very slowly, she raises her arms above her head as Pippa bites her lip and and gazes down at her, eyes full of uncertainty.

“It’s different,” She whispers, eyes never leaving Pippa’s. “I don’t fear you. I choose this.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Pippa’s hands come up and gently press Hecate’s wrist to the bed. “I’m yours,” Hecate promises. “Because I want to be.”

“Mine.” Pippa half laughs and half sobs. She moves her hands and presses a kiss to the inside of each wrist instead. And Hecate pulls her down to the bed, turns them until their positions are reversed.

She shudders at the realization that this must be how Pippa feels, the trust it places in her, the all consuming urge to defend and protect that races through her blood. She stares down at Pippa, moves her hand to her chest to feels every beat of her precious, priceless heart.

Pippa sighs and melts into the bed at her touch.

With fingertips, and mouth, and palms, Hecate explores the soft skin beneath her, nipping and soothing and drawing noises from Pippa that she never even dreamed were possible.

She moves lower, and Pippa catches her hands and holds them still. Her breathes comes out heavily for a moment, a flicker of something behind her eyes, before she smiles at her, settling back on the bed.

But Hecate studies her and stills, a dark realization crowding her mind. “That wizard. At the gala. That wasn’t the first time, was it. Or the worst time.”

Slowly, Pippa shakes her head. _Pipsqueak._ Gently Hecate takes Pippa’s hands and and kisses her palms and Pippa withdraws one so she can push herself up on an elbow, fingers steady against Hecate’s face. “We’re each other’s now. We'll always protect each other?”

Hecate’s heart aches at the question in Pippa’s voice and she kisses her fingertips. “We will always protect each other.” She agrees, and Pippa leans further forward to kiss her mouth.

“Lay back,” Hecate breathes against her lips and Pippa does, eyes shy but happy as Hecate shifts further down and places tender kisses across her hips and up the insides of her thighs. Pippa’s breath is coming fast, her fingers curling against Hecate’s scalp by the time Hecate’s mouth moves higher. It’s too much, and it’s not nearly enough; the sound Pippa makes at that first touch, the sound she herself makes at the taste of her.

She loses herself in this new world, this perfect intimacy where every movement elicits a magical and new discovery about Pippa. _Pippa_. Who she loves more than she ever has, more wholly, more completely, and without fear.

She knows she’ll have to do this a thousand times more, for it’s too knew for her to catalog, to remember every detail the way she would like to; the movements and noises and a thousand revelations blending together, lost to her as her mind melts into the simple, sweet pleasure of Pippa warm around her fingers and beneath her tongue.

And when Pippa shatters against her, it’s sweeter still, perhaps the sweetest feeling she’s ever known. Because it’s love. Pure. Untainted. Hers to give and - when Pippa pulls her up to cling to her, breath warm against her throat, hands trembling against her back - hers to accept.

Finally. To accept.

_______

They have breakfast in bed, a tray of jam, and toast, and coffee beside them as Pippa reclines against her chest, turning often to pull her down into languid kisses, her lips tinged with strawberry. They talk more. About life between their childhood and now. Of their unfortunate encounters through the years. Of Pippa’s school and the magical selfdefence course she’s developed to better prepare her students. Hecate takes her hand and kisses it, shyly asks if Pippa would consider bringing the curriculum to Cackle’s. They talk about Hecate’s research for her latest publication, of her days in the apothecary shop back she she slept with the constant fear of waking to Broomhead’s looming presence.

They talk more about Broomhead. Pippa cries again and Hecate holds her, whispers into her hair and kisses her sweetly. _I’m here now. I’m safe_. And Pippa turns in her arms and runs her hands over her whole body once more; arms, calves, shoulders, thighs, face, stomach, as if she needs to be sure. She pulls Hecate up and clasps her face between her hands, kisses her nose and her eyelids, her mouth, and temple, and a place just below her ear that makes Hecate gasp. They fall onto the bed, breakfast forgotten, and it’s well past one before Pippa has to rise and perform a few school duties.

Hecate stays in bed. Borrows Pippa’s maglet and writes to Ada. Words things carefully, although she realizes there’s not much way to hide what has transpired. She flushes but asks for the whole weekend off anyway, cheeks burning further when Ada responds immediately with an affirmative and a congratulations.

Pippa sends up tea and later joins her for dinner. They eat in the bed again, both suddenly starving until Hecate decides Pippa is simply overdressed and remedies it at once, pulling her into her lap as Pippa laughs over how difficult it is to eat with one hand. But they manage. And Hecate doesn’t plan on wasting a second of their time together, not ever again.

After Pippa returns later from bedtime rounds, they curl together, skin to skin and chest to chest. Pippa traces small pattern down her arm and they look at each other across the pillow.

Safe, and whole, and warm.


End file.
